Cooking Lesson #232: Eggs... Good or Bad?

How you doin’? Did you have eggs for breakfast this morning? Do you think eggs negatively impact your cholesterol? If you do, that information is outdated. For almost a half century, the FDA included a daily recommended intake for dietary cholesterol, just like their recommendations for sodium and fat. Eggs contained more than half of this daily intake and were quickly labeled as not-good-for-you. That myth persists today, despite the evidence to prove that dietary advice is outdated.
 
Political Note & Commentary:  This comment is not geared toward any party—Republican or Democrat or anyone in between—but to all the “do-gooders” in Washington, DC who should stay the hell out of our diets and stomachs. As evidenced by recent events regarding Covid-19, much of the “scientific” information we get from the Feds is incorrect (coming from someone who has been on lockdown in Los Angeles, California for almost a year). Likewise, there is a whole list of dietary mistakes they’ve made that have been over-turned. Maybe it would be best if they just stuck to raising our taxes and spending our money like drunken sailors and leave the food choices up to us.
 
Even though eggs have suffered a bad rap for being bad for your cholesterol and, by extension, your heart, nothing could be further from the truth.
 
Eggs are actually good for your heart; they're just victims of confusion, bad P.R. and a few decades of unproven, uneducated and ignorant thinking (that’s when we let the inmates run the asylum). Eggs are good for you and they deserve your respectful consideration!
 
In 2015, the FDA dropped this negative recommendation entirely, citing a lack of evidence that dietary cholesterol has any real impact on your overall health. Eggs suddenly went from major culprit to relatively innocent. This new scientific change of heart is still fairly recent and not widely known, so maybe that’s why the egg myth still persists.
 
Another reason eggs get bad press is because of the confusion between dietary cholesterol (found in food) and blood cholesterol made in the body. As a matter of fact, your body needs and makes its own cholesterol for essential functions like helping cell membranes form, creating hormones, helping the liver process fats and making Vitamin D. Cholesterol is also extremely important for developing children. It drives me crazy when I hear a parent say that they have cut the intake of eggs for very young children or put them on a low-cholesterol diet. While your body makes all the cholesterol it needs, this doesn't mean the cholesterol in your food is excessive and therefore bad for you. It's actually saturated fat, not dietary cholesterol, that can be more harmful for your heart.
 
I know the difference between good and bad cholesterol is confusing to a lot of our readers, so let me clear up some of the confusion. Cholesterol is often thought of as good or bad. Good cholesterol refers to HDL (high-density lipoproteins) and bad cholesterol refers to LDL (low-density lipoproteins).
 
Lipoproteins help carry cholesterol through the bloodstream. HDL, or good cholesterol, helps your body flush out bad cholesterol, improving your heart health. LDL, or bad cholesterol, can cause plaque to build up in your arteries and increase your risk for heart disease, heart attacks and strokes.
 
How do we make more of the good cholesterol and less of the bad stuff? We can raise our HDL—the good stuff—by consuming fiber-rich foods; we can lower our LDL by limiting saturated and trans fats in our diet. Eggs have been proven to be a heart-healthy choice. They contain little saturated fat—that increases bad cholesterol—and are packed with good protein.
 
This has been tested on people just like you. A study by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people who ate 12 eggs a week for three months did not increase their risk of heart disease as was previously thought. The American Heart Association now recommends one egg a day as part of a healthy diet.
 
Here’s the rub—while eggs themselves are heart healthy, the most common stir-ins like cheese, sausage, bacon and cream are all high in saturated fat and can make an egg dish unhealthy. It all goes back to what my mother used to say—everything in moderation. So, consume less cheese and ham in your Sunday Omelets and “beef” up the veggies, like tomatoes, asparagus, mushrooms and spinach. You can even cook eggs fat free by poaching them and skipping the hollandaise in Canadian Bacon Eggs Benedict or try creating some savory, spicy bowls with an egg on top.
 
Do you feel a little better equipped to make your own decisions on eating eggs? Great, let’s start by poaching some eggs.
 
                                                   Egg Poaching Method
Ingredients
8 quarts water (roughly, a large kettle half full of water)
2 tablespoons vinegar (5%)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
Eggs as needed
 
Directions

1. Bring the water and vinegar to a boil; add the salt and reduce the heat to simmer.
2. Crack the eggs open into a small bowl; using a large, long handled spoon create a whirlpool in the kettle and gently slide the eggs in the simmering water, one at a time. Simmer until the whites are set and the yolks are still runny inside, approximately 3-4 minutes.
3. Using a spider ladle, gently transfer the eggs to cold water to shock them and stop the cooking; hold in cold water until ready for serving.
4. When needed, place the eggs in the hot water just long enough to heat through.
5. Finish according to your favorite poached egg recipe.

ChefSecret:  I promise you won’t taste the vinegar. It just helps gather the strands of wild egg whites into a ball around the yolk. Likewise, creating the whirlpool in the simmering water helps to hold the egg whites close to the yolk.
 
                         Grilled Chicken Tenders & Poached Egg Sliders
                                 Burrata adds extra creamy goodness to grilled chicken sliders.
 
Prep time:  20 minutes
Cook time:  10 minutes
Yield:  8 sliders (4 servings)
 
Ingredients
8 thin boneless chicken tenders (hammered flat)
1 pinch salt and pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
8 King’s Hawaiian Original Rolls, split
1 tomato, thinly sliced
8 fresh basil leaves
4 ounces packaged burrata
 
Directions

1. Butterfly the chicken tenders in half to fit a slider bun.
2. Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper.
3. Lightly oil a grill or sauté pan over medium heat. Grill chicken until no longer pink inside (165⁰ F), about 5 minutes per side. Set aside.
4. Toast buns by grilling them cut-side down.
5. For each sandwich, layer a cooked chicken tender, tomato slice, fresh basil leaf and 1/2 ounce of burrata between the toasted slider buns.

ChefSecret:  A very good and simple variation is to use low sodium smoked, sliced turkey breast (luncheon meat) instead of the grilled chicken.

Covid-19 Quip of the Day: “Because of the pandemic, I’m at a place in my life where errands are starting to count as going out.”
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To you and everyone dear to you, be strong and positive, stay well and safe and be kind to others. If you have a little extra in your pockets to share with others at this difficult time, please consider donating to Feeding America. Thanks for reading.

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                                         ©Perspectives/The Consulting Group, Inc., 2021

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